There is nothing worse than getting to your shoot and realizing that you forgot your tripod plate or an SD card or to charge your batteries. Or maybe you’re so nervous that…you forgot your entire camera?!
A lot of this will go away with repetition, just naturally knowing and remembering what you need every time you go to shoot. But sometimes even professionals forget the littlest things.
Follow this checklist the night before or morning of your shoot:
TRIPOD PLATE
If you need a tripod, does your tripod have the plate on it? If not, is it maybe still on the bottom of your camera? Locate the plate.
Then determine if it is the right tripod plate that goes with your tripod. If you have multiple tripods of varying brands and sizes, the plates can be different.
MEMORY (SD CARD, CFEXPRESS CARD, SSD, ETC)
Do you have a card or drive for all of your equipment? Your camera(s)? Your sound recorder? Your external recorder?
If so, do these SD cards fit the requirements of your shoot? Do they have enough storage capacity? Are you good to format them and not lose previous data? Is the write speed compatible with your record settings?
POWER SUPPLIES
Do you have power supplies for all equipment? Do you have the right batteries for your camera? Are all of your batteries fully charged? Do you have enough charge on a single battery/set of batteries to last the whole shoot? Did you bring extra? Did you bring the charger for the batteries in case you need it?
If you’re using AC/wall power, are you sure that the location has outlets to plug into? Do you need any sort of stingers, household extension cords, surge protectors or adapters? Do you have stingers/extension cords that are long enough? If you’re using any high powered fixtures, have you ensured you can plug those in with no issues?
AUDIO EQUIPMENT
If you’re the one recording audio, did you remember to pack your headphones? Does your recorder/mixer have batteries? Does your recorder have a card in it? Do you have all necessary microphones packed? Do you have all of your cables? Do you have all accessories needed?
MISCELLANEOUS ACCESSORIES
Have you gathered and properly organized all of your other miscellaneous accessories? Like filters, matte boxes, tapes, cable management accessories, cables, cleaning supplies, tools, etc.
Many of these could go in what’s referred to sometimes as a “ditty” bag, which is typically a bag that ACs (assistant cameras) in particular use on set to store all their essential accessories in one easy place.
CAMERA SETTINGS
Have you set up your camera settings ahead of time as much as possible?
Especially when operating on small crews or solo shoots, setting up your camera ahead of time can be a time saver on set. Granted, you can’t always setup everything ahead of time, but you can set up initial settings and have a better starting point. This could include resolution, color space, bit depth, compression levels, and more.